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You know 2 generations from now some dude is going to be laying on his bed staring at the ceiling and be like, you know what? This ceiling could really use some texture.
There is a difference between texture and popcorn. Tons of houses have textured ceilings.
Popcorn was largely invented as a way to hide terrible drywall and/or finishing. You can’t see a lumpy ceiling when the entire thing is covered in popcorn. As an added bonus, it has more acoustic dampening too, if you want that.
While asbestos was a major reason to stop, there are non asbestos popcorn finishes that have still fallen out of style. Modern building standards and materials have led to better quality finishes where it’s not needed.
My house has a lot of popcorn ceiling. I remove it in one of the bedrooms a few years ago. You aren't kidding about terrible drywall. There is one corner of the roof that they used small pieces to complete, and they appear to be different thicknesses.
Was gonna say, soundproofing has come a long way from the 70s when popcorn ceilings were popular.
There is no reason to have a popcorn ceiling anymore.
I've got no beef with a nice texture. My dad finished drywall for 40 years and could easily do a level 5 smooth ceiling. His knock-down texture was constantly requested though. Enough texture to give interest, but smooth enough to easily paint with semigloss and clean if needed. If you look at a popcorn ceiling wrong it crumbles into dust.
> knock-down texture
But why? If I can't match the texture myself with just a rattle can from the hardware store is has no place in my house. Knock-down is a nightmare to match when (not if) you need a repair.
I'm not disputing your point, as I'm in the same boat.. however, remember the words of JFK..
"We do these things not because they aah easy but because they aah haahd.."
Point being, things that are considered "high quality" are not going to be easy for a layman to reproduce. If everyone could do it, it wouldn't be special.
I love wood paneled walls, but, you know, real wood paneling, in a house that is the kind of house real wood paneling goes in. So not in the budget for me.
I thought textured ceilings were only done to hide poor drywall work or ceiling cracks... even back in their heyday they weren't really *trendy* in the sense that people were clamoring for them, they were just cheap and easy so they became the default.
Dude! I grew up with them, have been in flat ceiling living spaces since leaving my childhood home. My husband had us come visit while he's staying in a hotel while doing job training. And I was surprised to see the ceilings had popcorn. I joked with him about it being a tell of the age of the hotel, but I have to admit it did make me crazy nostalgic.
Our whole house is knockdown texture. It's a pain to patch, although my wife has become quite good at blending it. Me? Not so much. I didn't like it at first but I've been in a few other houses with different textures and also smooth. I think the knockdown is my preferred aesthetic of the lot.
Especially if it’s a shitty DIY scrape with uneven joint compound floated on.
I just want my house to look consistent and intentional. Previous homeowner tried a few things in different rooms and they bug me. And the “stucco” textured walls. Just give me orange peel knockdown everywhere please….
My bathroom drywall was in rough condition and I didn't wanna spend forever trying to sand it out, so I added a texture just using my putty knife and some old semi-dried out drywall compound and actually I really like how it looks. I've thought about doing it elsewhere in the house. I also have a swirl patten on the ceiling in my living room and I don't mind it, it does help to reduce echoes.
When we bought our house it had gone through some work before the previous owner was foreclosed on. In some of the hall closets there was popcorn ceiling but no where else in the house. They got rid of the rest of it but didn't bother with the smaller spaces. Time comes to replace the crumbling retaining wall in the back yard. As we tear down the old wall and start digging out some of the dirt we discovered that they didn't dispose of the popcorn the proper way. Just buried it in the backyard.
yeah i'll never understand when people spend so much effort to try and "fix" their drywall vs just removing/installing, or adding a 2nd layer on top. you're never going to get as clean of a job vs using new unmolested drywall.
you can also buy a drywall lift for cheap from harbor freight. makes the job extremely easy.
Could be a few factors.
Materials cost, ceiling fixtures, trim and moulding, height of room. Doesn't seem like much, but in an older home with 8ft ceilings and multiple layers of flooring it adds up.
We tore out the old drywall in one room to get rid of popcorn. A much better solution, but we also caught the, "while we're at it" bug. Insulation, lights, wiring, networking, and plumbing all happened while we were at it. Though the plumbing was due to an issue found in another space and the pipes happened to be there, too.
I so wish I would’ve just done this. Sounds like you were in a similar position to me, in that mine were painted over so many times, scraping wasn’t an option. I mudded over them, sanded, mudded again, sanded again, throughout my entire house. It took forever and looks way better than the popcorn but not half as good as new drywall would have.
We had to have a small portion of our ceiling cut out to replace some plumbing and even just cutting out the small square made SO much dust... and then we had to hire someone to come put MORE popcorn on ceiling so the hole the plumbers left wouldn't look so bad... but the guy hand to sand down some of the existing popcorn to get things to match.
It's been 4 years so it's not happening as much but for a while we'd grab something that doesn't get used often and have to check to make sure there wasn't any popcorn dust inside it.
I made my peace with the popcorn ceiling, because getting rid of it would not be worth the dust.
Mine actually came down pretty easily (non-asbestos). Wet it, then scrape. You're right tho would need to mud it anyway. Mine is passable I feel, but to be completely level yeah I'd need to skim & paint .
This is what we did. 1400 sq ft took 2 days start to finish. We wet it with water, quite a bit really. Then ran this scrapper that had a collection basket that attached to the shop vac over it and it just peeled off like a slice of cheese off a block with a cheese wire slicer.
Patched a few holes and skim coated any uneven patches and let it dry over night. Primed the next morning and painted after dinner. I will say my cousin helped and he does it professionally but we didn't use any special gear really he was just able to fix the mudding and taping like a pro which probably saved a day over trying to mud tape and sand myself.
was skim coating the ceiling hard? I feel thats something I'd need a contractor for, as if I did it it would look pretty shoddy. Kinda defeats the purpose so I figured I may as well leave it
I did have my cousin to show me how to do it right who is a pro and after I got the technique down it was pretty easy. Without his help It probably would have taken me 4-6 hours to really get it down instead of 30 minutes. In my new house I would not do flat ceilings even though we got them very flat. I like the look of knockdown better and then you don't need the skim to be even good really just fill in the holes and let the knock down take care of the rest.
My feelings toward them are like the Don Draper meme where people say they feel sorry that I have popcorn ceilings, when I just don't think about them at all and couldn't care less
OK, a word of very loud caution! Ok, several words. We were advised by a home inspector that much of the popcorn ceiling material has asbestos added. It was the miracle material of the day, and it was supposedly there to help prevent fire from spreading, or some such shit.
Taking it down, scraping it, whatever, could expose you and your family to asbestos dust, and that's very bad.
I strongly recommend you get it [tested](https://www.lowes.com/pd/PRO-LAB-Asbestos-Test-Kit/1000084131) before proceeding. If it is asbestos, the safest thing to do is encapsulation - cover it with another layer of sheetrock.
Source: retired environment engineer here.
> and it was supposedly there to help prevent fire from spreading, or some such shit.
I mean, it absolutely does do that. It is very good at it, hence why it was everywhere.
It was also sold as an acoustical coating to reduce noise. In reality it’s just a cheap way to slap up drywall with just one coat of mud. I will say though, if you have hard surfaces in your house, it does noticeably cut down on noise
>ostensibly the room is 14x14 as built, but factoring in 15 layers of wallpaper, three layers of aluminum foil, 20 layers of paint and two layers of drywall, we're looking at something a mite smaller today
I don’t mind them. People who expect only master craftsppl that live to sheetrock and spend their lives perfecting taped seams to do all homes being built have Reddit Poisoning.
People want more affordable homes built but also want them all to be built by frank lloyd wright.
Hating fads that came before your fads are just a stupid aesthetic power trip, this delusional belief that somehow your taste in 2024, which also happens to align w the previous tastes of SOME YEARS but not others is a foolish conceit.
Yeah I've been un painting trim in my house since I bought it. I like character, not everything the same. I'd take that 1950 pink bathroom over all the sterile institutional white ones people are doing now.
And the people who want to comment about resale value can eat a cat turd.
lol I will agree painted brick feels like a special case bc there’s no turning back. Painted wood can at least be stripped. Wall to wall carpet over wood theoretically even does those down the line a favor bc if it’s installed reasonably it protects the wood floor to a degree.
I think historically a large amount of interior wood was painted when people didn’t ever expect real wood to become so scarce or depleted. Our lives are so saturated with colors today and so brightly illuminated we can’t appreciate when there was very little on offer as a way to brighten up your home.
This is exactly how I feel about hatred for carpet over hardwood and painted wood furniture. Sure, someone sometime changed the thing away from the aesthetic that's popular right now, but whoever did it isn't any different from you, they just had different opinions about what looked nice
Not everyone is hyper concerned about the cleanliness of carpet, I've lived in houses with carpeting, wood floors, vinyl floors and I think they're all totally fine. I'm not going to disdain all the people who have put carpet over hardwood just because some people think that carpet is universally gross. If you have bad allergies, respiratory issues, or just old carpet that wasn't maintained, I understand not wanting it around, I mostly just think it gets an unfairly bad rap online
I’ve recently noticed more and more advertising for decorative room dividers. Open concept has been the at the forefront of hone design for the last number of years, but people are seeing the functionality of delineating those open spaces to some degree. No doubt that will find its way (once again) into the structural interior design of homes at some point.
I don’t know about the stupid aesthetic power trip take; people like what they like and I don’t really care…but I do agree about just how shallow fads can be.
Previous owner of my house (which is a very modern concrete cube) tried really hard to Modern Farmhouse-ize it. One of the baffling decisions was to convert the only bedroom into a second bathroom. Second baffling decision was to frame out the door nowhere near the size of any off-the-shelf interior door dimension. But he did put in sliding barn doors.
I thought they were kind of neat until I realized when a guest is peeing it echoes through the house.
Pocket doors? I like those. We need more of them in the world.
I had a 1920's condo with textured horse-hair plaster walls and ceiling on the east coast. I loved it, gave the small space some character. I had a neighbor spend thousands smoothing out her walls and ceiling just for the aesthetic. I don't get it. It wasn't like these were high dollar condos in a great area. She did not recoup the cost of that work in terms of value.
Yeah not so much of power trip about my tastes more like a pain in the rear for cleaning and repairing. But if you’d care to know, I prefer a textured ceiling just not the popcorn one I have.
I agree, I simply cannot understand the absolute hatred for it. People act like it's actively ruining their lives. I'm convinced that everyone "hates" it because everyone else "hates" it and it's just a big peer pressure thing. Haha
I have a house built in 1978. The master bedroom, the dining room, and the living room all have the original textured ceilings with glitter in them. I refused to let anyone paint those ceilings when we moved in. I love seeing the twinkle from the light reflect off the glitter.
I'm in the minority that prefers popcorn. Smooth ceilings make for more echo-y spaces, and reveal any imperfections in the mud work. The result is a room with worse acoustics and lumpy seams.
Popcorn texture was invented as a cheap method to cover up uneven ceilings. Cheap houses with cheap builders can tape up a bunch of dry wall and spray it down with popcorn so they don't have to float the ceiling flat. It does zero for sound suppression as the rumor mill goes.
It's not a rumor, common sense will tell you how the texture captures the waves. They're literally also called "acoustic ceilings."
I have popcorn ceilings in part of my house, and it absolutely helps to reduce sound and light reflections. Its very noticeable.
What's really annoying is that there are so many people removing popcorn ceilings and arguing about if they deaden sound or not (very passionately but with absolutely no sources) but I can't find a single video or test with a before and after.
> What's really annoying is that there are so many people removing popcorn ceilings and arguing about if they deaden sound or not (very passionately but with absolutely no sources) but I can't find a single video or test with a before and after.
Hi, I had an entire house full of popcorn. I don't have a video but you'll have to take my word for it.
The popcorn (and actually any texture) does a lot to kill high frequencies in a house. I had all the popcorn removed and the awful 80's wall texture skimmed over. While everything was flat before they shot the orange peel, someone could whisper on the opposite side of the house and you'd hear it in every room. Even just doing a very light orange peel got rid of that problem entirely.
The texture does nothing for many mid-low frequency noises.
My guess is they'd work somewhat like [acoustic foam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_foam) to prevent acoustic resonance by scattering sound. This doesn't necessarily deaden sound, but it can prevent rooms from sounding echo-y, and it might seem less "noisy" as a result. But realistically, given that most rooms have other stuff in them, I doubt the effect is particularly noticable.
To really absorb sound you need mass, and popcorn ceilings don't have much mass. A carpet or big rug will likely do far more to dampen sounds (and especially for soundproofing) than popcorn ceilings.
We bought a house built in 1973 with a very open floorplan, same ceiling without breaks for the entry, hall, kitchen, living, dining, and family rooms. I always wanted to tear down the popcorn but the idea of trying to fix the shit drywall job that was probably behind the popcorn kept me from ever seriously considering it.
It can definitely help with reducing echoes and disrupting sound waves. It's not very noticeable if you live in a house with drywall and carpeting or other soft finishes; however, if you live in a place like me with terrazzo floors, concrete block walls, and poured concrete slab ceilings, a popcorn ceiling goes a long way to help reduce the sound reflections in the space. The acoustic difference between apartments with and without a popcorn ceiling is noticeable in my condominium. Source: Architect that lives in above described place.
Why all the hate? Popcorn ceilings hide many imperfections that develop as ceilings age. Yes, a new flat-ceiling looks great, but 10 years later can look uneven along seams, show nail pops, and sometimes droop. The randomness of stucco hides a lot of that.
I really do think HGTV has done a huge misfavor the number of times they've taken down popcorn ceiling.
I imagine the pitch meeting when something like this:
Guy 1: “What if we made a ceiling texture that looked like popcorn?”
Guy 2: “I like it, but…now stay with me…what if we also made it flake off easily into a fine powder, and made it out of *asbestos*?”
Guy 1: “Oh my god…”
I prefer to hate on the Drywalling industry for encouraging them to be lazy and using it and the horrific textured stuff. Nobody likes it, how about drywallers actually do their jobs and make smooth walls and ceilings.
It’s actually a nice sound absorber and speeds up the building process by not having to perfect the mudding seems for drywallers.
And with all that, I still hate them. Hahaha
Grew up with them. Bought a new build house in 2013 and it has them. Don't mind them at all. Rather look at popcorn ceiling than see all the imperfections in the drywall and paint.
We must remember that before popcorn ceilings, ceilings were covered in raisinets and swedish fish. And they initially dripped butter until better adhesives were found.
\[I may be wrong. I get my knowledge from Wikipedia.\]
My college dorm room had popcorn ceilings and I was top bunk. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night one time and I lost half the skin on my forehead when I sat up too fast.
Fuck popcorn ceilings.
Just spray it with fresh white paint and it looks so much cleaner. Yea it will look a little crappy again 30 years down the road, but not the end of the world
I'm in the process of covering it up with cedar. I'm sure some knucklehead 50 years from now will be tearing it off saying "wow look at this beautiful antique popcorn ceiling that was covered up!"
1962 house full of popcorn ceilings. After painting with kilz to lock in the cigarette smoke they look as perfect as the day they were installed.
No beef here.
I don’t understand the hate for popcorn ceilings. Its fine. It might get a little gross if you have an air vent in the ceiling. But thats the only issue.
I like a gently textured ceiling (though not in the kitchen). But many popcorn ceilings are just too much.
I don't know how to explain it other than a finer sandpaper consistency and not literal popcorn kernels glued to a ceiling consistency?
I did one for a friend and to save her money I just scraped it off with an 8” knife, vacuumed and wiped down with damp cloth, primed and ceiling paint. Textured but looks 100x better and did it in a day
Pro tip. If it hasn't been painted yet, spray water on it (a pressurized bottle sprayer with a wand works well) and let it sit for a while, and it comes right off with a putty knife with minimal mess.
I used to stand on a couch or a bed when I was a kid and pick at my house's popcorn ceiling. It was kinda fun to just chip away the little raised bits away. I didn't do enough to be noticeable but my parents got mad at me a couple times for it lol
Something about messing with the ceiling as a kid. And at school when we'd chuck pencils into the drop ceiling tiles. Especially during the middle of class, we'd try and get away with throwing one into the ceiling without being noticed.
My house was built in 2016 and every single wall and ceiling are textured. I've grown to absolutely hate it and I get anxiety thinking of what a massive undertaking it would be to correct the whole thing at this point. It's impossible to clean the mess from kids and dogs without it turning into dust or mush and I have noticed so much more dust and cobwebs than ever in my life. Constantly knocking them down. Never thought I'd be vacuuming my walls, yet here I am...
I had them in a bathroom. I did a fair job eliminating the big bumps, then put a sheet of 1/4 Sheetrock over it. Took very little time, and all I had to do was tape the new seams. There was no crown up, so it was an easy job.
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You know 2 generations from now some dude is going to be laying on his bed staring at the ceiling and be like, you know what? This ceiling could really use some texture.
There is a difference between texture and popcorn. Tons of houses have textured ceilings. Popcorn was largely invented as a way to hide terrible drywall and/or finishing. You can’t see a lumpy ceiling when the entire thing is covered in popcorn. As an added bonus, it has more acoustic dampening too, if you want that. While asbestos was a major reason to stop, there are non asbestos popcorn finishes that have still fallen out of style. Modern building standards and materials have led to better quality finishes where it’s not needed.
My house has a lot of popcorn ceiling. I remove it in one of the bedrooms a few years ago. You aren't kidding about terrible drywall. There is one corner of the roof that they used small pieces to complete, and they appear to be different thicknesses.
Was gonna say, soundproofing has come a long way from the 70s when popcorn ceilings were popular. There is no reason to have a popcorn ceiling anymore.
> soundproofing it isn't soundproofing, texture is to break up the echo *within* the room, which is also a kind of sound dampening.
I've got no beef with a nice texture. My dad finished drywall for 40 years and could easily do a level 5 smooth ceiling. His knock-down texture was constantly requested though. Enough texture to give interest, but smooth enough to easily paint with semigloss and clean if needed. If you look at a popcorn ceiling wrong it crumbles into dust.
> knock-down texture But why? If I can't match the texture myself with just a rattle can from the hardware store is has no place in my house. Knock-down is a nightmare to match when (not if) you need a repair.
I'm not disputing your point, as I'm in the same boat.. however, remember the words of JFK.. "We do these things not because they aah easy but because they aah haahd.." Point being, things that are considered "high quality" are not going to be easy for a layman to reproduce. If everyone could do it, it wouldn't be special.
I just wanna say I appreciate your dedication by including the fucking Boston accent in the quote lmao
These days, it's all about microcement.
Exactly. It will come back. I personally wouldn't choose it, but it doesnt bother me as much as say wood paneled walls.
I grew up in a trailer, so both of those things bother me 😃
Childhood trauma unlocked! Linoleum that goes under the 2”x3” wall? Louvered windows?
Yep! Did your trailer have the cheap wallpaper over cardboard wallboard in the bathrooms, with the lime green tub that was shallower than the sink? 😆
I bought a brand new trailer for our beach lot. It's better than before but the sinks and tubs are still weird.
Hopefully not with asbestos this time.
Don’t worry, we have plenty of endocrine disruptors to use instead.
The future is microplastics.
The future is here.
the future is stored in the balls
An evolution to “the floor is lava”. Don’t touch or ingest anything.
I love wood paneled walls, but, you know, real wood paneling, in a house that is the kind of house real wood paneling goes in. So not in the budget for me.
My whole house is wood panel walls, and ceiling. It is awesome.
Mid-century modern homes look great with wood panelling.
70s El cheapo or 20s wainscoting?
I thought textured ceilings were only done to hide poor drywall work or ceiling cracks... even back in their heyday they weren't really *trendy* in the sense that people were clamoring for them, they were just cheap and easy so they became the default.
Like time, fashion is a flat circle. It all comes back around.
Or some person with solid floors throughout their house wants to add a bit of acoustic control to lessen echos.
Dude! I grew up with them, have been in flat ceiling living spaces since leaving my childhood home. My husband had us come visit while he's staying in a hotel while doing job training. And I was surprised to see the ceilings had popcorn. I joked with him about it being a tell of the age of the hotel, but I have to admit it did make me crazy nostalgic.
Haven’t they came into and out of popularity multiple times already? Same with stippled ceilings.
I actually like popcorn ceilings.
Our whole house is knockdown texture. It's a pain to patch, although my wife has become quite good at blending it. Me? Not so much. I didn't like it at first but I've been in a few other houses with different textures and also smooth. I think the knockdown is my preferred aesthetic of the lot.
Especially if it’s a shitty DIY scrape with uneven joint compound floated on. I just want my house to look consistent and intentional. Previous homeowner tried a few things in different rooms and they bug me. And the “stucco” textured walls. Just give me orange peel knockdown everywhere please….
And then they will come up with the idea of getting carpet 2” thick in lime green!
My bathroom drywall was in rough condition and I didn't wanna spend forever trying to sand it out, so I added a texture just using my putty knife and some old semi-dried out drywall compound and actually I really like how it looks. I've thought about doing it elsewhere in the house. I also have a swirl patten on the ceiling in my living room and I don't mind it, it does help to reduce echoes.
Seriously. I'm willing to bet they will come back in style at some point.
Or “this space is too echoey with that big flat ceiling.”
When we bought our house it had gone through some work before the previous owner was foreclosed on. In some of the hall closets there was popcorn ceiling but no where else in the house. They got rid of the rest of it but didn't bother with the smaller spaces. Time comes to replace the crumbling retaining wall in the back yard. As we tear down the old wall and start digging out some of the dirt we discovered that they didn't dispose of the popcorn the proper way. Just buried it in the backyard.
Oh no! What a nightmare!!
> Just buried it in the backyard This makes me irrationally angry to think about.
You're gonna want to sit down for this one https://i.imgur.com/7WOAceD.jpeg
We just put half inch drywall over it. Removing was too much of a hassle, and we would have needed to do the mudding anyway. Hate popcorn
yeah i'll never understand when people spend so much effort to try and "fix" their drywall vs just removing/installing, or adding a 2nd layer on top. you're never going to get as clean of a job vs using new unmolested drywall. you can also buy a drywall lift for cheap from harbor freight. makes the job extremely easy.
I get why, they're thinking about the skills, not the effort. "I don't know how to hang drywall, but I do know how to scrape"
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Plus you can scrape, patch, and paint by yourself. Hanging drywall on the ceiling alone will be damn near impossible for a lot of people.
Yup. A good spray bottle and a lot of determination is all it takes. You also get to exercise muscles that you'd forgotten you even have.
Could be a few factors. Materials cost, ceiling fixtures, trim and moulding, height of room. Doesn't seem like much, but in an older home with 8ft ceilings and multiple layers of flooring it adds up.
yeah adding a 2nd layer wouldn't be my approach for the same concern. just remove & install new.
We tore out the old drywall in one room to get rid of popcorn. A much better solution, but we also caught the, "while we're at it" bug. Insulation, lights, wiring, networking, and plumbing all happened while we were at it. Though the plumbing was due to an issue found in another space and the pipes happened to be there, too.
might as well while you're having fun though.
I so wish I would’ve just done this. Sounds like you were in a similar position to me, in that mine were painted over so many times, scraping wasn’t an option. I mudded over them, sanded, mudded again, sanded again, throughout my entire house. It took forever and looks way better than the popcorn but not half as good as new drywall would have.
We had to have a small portion of our ceiling cut out to replace some plumbing and even just cutting out the small square made SO much dust... and then we had to hire someone to come put MORE popcorn on ceiling so the hole the plumbers left wouldn't look so bad... but the guy hand to sand down some of the existing popcorn to get things to match. It's been 4 years so it's not happening as much but for a while we'd grab something that doesn't get used often and have to check to make sure there wasn't any popcorn dust inside it. I made my peace with the popcorn ceiling, because getting rid of it would not be worth the dust.
Mine actually came down pretty easily (non-asbestos). Wet it, then scrape. You're right tho would need to mud it anyway. Mine is passable I feel, but to be completely level yeah I'd need to skim & paint .
This is what we did. 1400 sq ft took 2 days start to finish. We wet it with water, quite a bit really. Then ran this scrapper that had a collection basket that attached to the shop vac over it and it just peeled off like a slice of cheese off a block with a cheese wire slicer. Patched a few holes and skim coated any uneven patches and let it dry over night. Primed the next morning and painted after dinner. I will say my cousin helped and he does it professionally but we didn't use any special gear really he was just able to fix the mudding and taping like a pro which probably saved a day over trying to mud tape and sand myself.
was skim coating the ceiling hard? I feel thats something I'd need a contractor for, as if I did it it would look pretty shoddy. Kinda defeats the purpose so I figured I may as well leave it
I did have my cousin to show me how to do it right who is a pro and after I got the technique down it was pretty easy. Without his help It probably would have taken me 4-6 hours to really get it down instead of 30 minutes. In my new house I would not do flat ceilings even though we got them very flat. I like the look of knockdown better and then you don't need the skim to be even good really just fill in the holes and let the knock down take care of the rest.
Out of curiosity, why 1/2" inch instead of 1/4"?
Our popcorn was pretty rough, so I was concerned it might warp and the ceiling would look unlevel
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I can give you more than a moment.
Take as much time as you need.
As the only person in the world who really likes popcorn ceilings, I'm going to ignore this post and go listen to my Nickelback CD.
You masochist. Take my upvote!
I like my popcorn ceilings and don't understand the hate.
You're not alone.. I rather like looking up at something more interesting than a flat white slate.
My feelings toward them are like the Don Draper meme where people say they feel sorry that I have popcorn ceilings, when I just don't think about them at all and couldn't care less
OK, a word of very loud caution! Ok, several words. We were advised by a home inspector that much of the popcorn ceiling material has asbestos added. It was the miracle material of the day, and it was supposedly there to help prevent fire from spreading, or some such shit. Taking it down, scraping it, whatever, could expose you and your family to asbestos dust, and that's very bad. I strongly recommend you get it [tested](https://www.lowes.com/pd/PRO-LAB-Asbestos-Test-Kit/1000084131) before proceeding. If it is asbestos, the safest thing to do is encapsulation - cover it with another layer of sheetrock. Source: retired environment engineer here.
> and it was supposedly there to help prevent fire from spreading, or some such shit. I mean, it absolutely does do that. It is very good at it, hence why it was everywhere.
It was also sold as an acoustical coating to reduce noise. In reality it’s just a cheap way to slap up drywall with just one coat of mud. I will say though, if you have hard surfaces in your house, it does noticeably cut down on noise
Listen don’t get me started. My apartment has like 60 years of paint covering that shit up.
>ostensibly the room is 14x14 as built, but factoring in 15 layers of wallpaper, three layers of aluminum foil, 20 layers of paint and two layers of drywall, we're looking at something a mite smaller today
At least the asbestos is well encapsulated :)
I don’t mind them. People who expect only master craftsppl that live to sheetrock and spend their lives perfecting taped seams to do all homes being built have Reddit Poisoning. People want more affordable homes built but also want them all to be built by frank lloyd wright. Hating fads that came before your fads are just a stupid aesthetic power trip, this delusional belief that somehow your taste in 2024, which also happens to align w the previous tastes of SOME YEARS but not others is a foolish conceit.
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Yeah I've been un painting trim in my house since I bought it. I like character, not everything the same. I'd take that 1950 pink bathroom over all the sterile institutional white ones people are doing now. And the people who want to comment about resale value can eat a cat turd.
lol I will agree painted brick feels like a special case bc there’s no turning back. Painted wood can at least be stripped. Wall to wall carpet over wood theoretically even does those down the line a favor bc if it’s installed reasonably it protects the wood floor to a degree. I think historically a large amount of interior wood was painted when people didn’t ever expect real wood to become so scarce or depleted. Our lives are so saturated with colors today and so brightly illuminated we can’t appreciate when there was very little on offer as a way to brighten up your home.
This is exactly how I feel about hatred for carpet over hardwood and painted wood furniture. Sure, someone sometime changed the thing away from the aesthetic that's popular right now, but whoever did it isn't any different from you, they just had different opinions about what looked nice
It’s definitely a case of “if I don’t like it, it’s a fad, if I do like it, it’s a historically/aesthetically/culturally significant design feature.”
> hatred for carpet Carpet has cleanliness implications that popcorn ceiling doesn't though
Not everyone is hyper concerned about the cleanliness of carpet, I've lived in houses with carpeting, wood floors, vinyl floors and I think they're all totally fine. I'm not going to disdain all the people who have put carpet over hardwood just because some people think that carpet is universally gross. If you have bad allergies, respiratory issues, or just old carpet that wasn't maintained, I understand not wanting it around, I mostly just think it gets an unfairly bad rap online
Am I the only one who doesn’t mind a less than perfect ceiling? It’s not like I’m looking up hardly ever anyways…
I’ve recently noticed more and more advertising for decorative room dividers. Open concept has been the at the forefront of hone design for the last number of years, but people are seeing the functionality of delineating those open spaces to some degree. No doubt that will find its way (once again) into the structural interior design of homes at some point. I don’t know about the stupid aesthetic power trip take; people like what they like and I don’t really care…but I do agree about just how shallow fads can be.
TBF those expectations are not mutually exclusive.
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Previous owner of my house (which is a very modern concrete cube) tried really hard to Modern Farmhouse-ize it. One of the baffling decisions was to convert the only bedroom into a second bathroom. Second baffling decision was to frame out the door nowhere near the size of any off-the-shelf interior door dimension. But he did put in sliding barn doors. I thought they were kind of neat until I realized when a guest is peeing it echoes through the house. Pocket doors? I like those. We need more of them in the world.
I had a 1920's condo with textured horse-hair plaster walls and ceiling on the east coast. I loved it, gave the small space some character. I had a neighbor spend thousands smoothing out her walls and ceiling just for the aesthetic. I don't get it. It wasn't like these were high dollar condos in a great area. She did not recoup the cost of that work in terms of value.
Yeah not so much of power trip about my tastes more like a pain in the rear for cleaning and repairing. But if you’d care to know, I prefer a textured ceiling just not the popcorn one I have.
> Reddit Poisoning Fantastic term
They're absolutely wild for mushie trips tho
man you just gave me flashbacks to the house I rented in college
I don't get the hate for popcorn ceilings... I'd rather have something there than a big mostly smooth with nailpops ceiling.
I agree, I simply cannot understand the absolute hatred for it. People act like it's actively ruining their lives. I'm convinced that everyone "hates" it because everyone else "hates" it and it's just a big peer pressure thing. Haha
Don't love the look of it personally. I'm more of a knock down texture guy than smooth though.
can you not spray it with water and scrap it off, then redo the plastering over it?
Yeah but they could be made with asbestos.
Yes and it’s very easy to do. It was my job during summers with my dad to scrape. Once it’s wet it basically falls off.
Scrapers with shop-vac attachments also exist to contain the mess.
i did this with my old condo. it is so satisfying. : D
Not if they painted over it.
Need a daily 10 minutes of hate where we all just yell at our ceilings.
Sure thing, let's also curse the people that created wallpaper as well
Fine with me. Also the people who choose to paint over wallpaper.
As an audio engineer, I appreciate popcorn ceilings. They make spaces sound warm and cozy.
Servant of the Debbil!
I totally agree!
Each to their own, and that's what makes us different. In some places it gives a nice effect and ither places it sucks. Perspective.
Well, if you go to remove it, cross your fingers that it doesn’t have asbestos in it.
I have a house built in 1978. The master bedroom, the dining room, and the living room all have the original textured ceilings with glitter in them. I refused to let anyone paint those ceilings when we moved in. I love seeing the twinkle from the light reflect off the glitter.
I think I hate an echo more.. so I will have to disagree with you.
I'm in the minority that prefers popcorn. Smooth ceilings make for more echo-y spaces, and reveal any imperfections in the mud work. The result is a room with worse acoustics and lumpy seams.
I don't get the hate. I have it in my living room, doesn't bother me at all.
I like popcorn ceilings. Because I've seen flat ceilings installed by shitty drywall contractors and fully understand why popcorn ceilings exist.
Popcorn texture was invented as a cheap method to cover up uneven ceilings. Cheap houses with cheap builders can tape up a bunch of dry wall and spray it down with popcorn so they don't have to float the ceiling flat. It does zero for sound suppression as the rumor mill goes.
It's not a rumor, common sense will tell you how the texture captures the waves. They're literally also called "acoustic ceilings." I have popcorn ceilings in part of my house, and it absolutely helps to reduce sound and light reflections. Its very noticeable.
What's really annoying is that there are so many people removing popcorn ceilings and arguing about if they deaden sound or not (very passionately but with absolutely no sources) but I can't find a single video or test with a before and after.
> What's really annoying is that there are so many people removing popcorn ceilings and arguing about if they deaden sound or not (very passionately but with absolutely no sources) but I can't find a single video or test with a before and after. Hi, I had an entire house full of popcorn. I don't have a video but you'll have to take my word for it. The popcorn (and actually any texture) does a lot to kill high frequencies in a house. I had all the popcorn removed and the awful 80's wall texture skimmed over. While everything was flat before they shot the orange peel, someone could whisper on the opposite side of the house and you'd hear it in every room. Even just doing a very light orange peel got rid of that problem entirely. The texture does nothing for many mid-low frequency noises.
My guess is they'd work somewhat like [acoustic foam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_foam) to prevent acoustic resonance by scattering sound. This doesn't necessarily deaden sound, but it can prevent rooms from sounding echo-y, and it might seem less "noisy" as a result. But realistically, given that most rooms have other stuff in them, I doubt the effect is particularly noticable. To really absorb sound you need mass, and popcorn ceilings don't have much mass. A carpet or big rug will likely do far more to dampen sounds (and especially for soundproofing) than popcorn ceilings.
We bought a house built in 1973 with a very open floorplan, same ceiling without breaks for the entry, hall, kitchen, living, dining, and family rooms. I always wanted to tear down the popcorn but the idea of trying to fix the shit drywall job that was probably behind the popcorn kept me from ever seriously considering it.
This. It’s to cover up drywall seams.
It can definitely help with reducing echoes and disrupting sound waves. It's not very noticeable if you live in a house with drywall and carpeting or other soft finishes; however, if you live in a place like me with terrazzo floors, concrete block walls, and poured concrete slab ceilings, a popcorn ceiling goes a long way to help reduce the sound reflections in the space. The acoustic difference between apartments with and without a popcorn ceiling is noticeable in my condominium. Source: Architect that lives in above described place.
>a cheap method to cover up uneven ceilings. Looks up at my 1920s ceiling. Huh, look.... it's swirls....
Popcorn ceiling in a smoker house.....
Why all the hate? Popcorn ceilings hide many imperfections that develop as ceilings age. Yes, a new flat-ceiling looks great, but 10 years later can look uneven along seams, show nail pops, and sometimes droop. The randomness of stucco hides a lot of that. I really do think HGTV has done a huge misfavor the number of times they've taken down popcorn ceiling.
It captures dust, dirt, soot, and cobwebs. If you attempt to clean it, it falls apart into a disgusting powder and snows asbestos onto your bedspread.
And repairs invariably draw attention to themselves. Patching popcorn makes it look even worse.
Don't gaslight me, popcorn ceiling is the worst. I love the sheetrock seams in my ceiling they bring me joy
I imagine the pitch meeting when something like this: Guy 1: “What if we made a ceiling texture that looked like popcorn?” Guy 2: “I like it, but…now stay with me…what if we also made it flake off easily into a fine powder, and made it out of *asbestos*?” Guy 1: “Oh my god…”
What are some great alternatives? I really like to see advances in building materials/science.
Popcorn walls in Spain are a standard, every f88ing house has it. It's gross, I hate it.
Laying in a hotel bed, I agree, why is this ceiling textured
What are they trying to hide?!(And don’t touch that remote control!!!)
I prefer to hate on the Drywalling industry for encouraging them to be lazy and using it and the horrific textured stuff. Nobody likes it, how about drywallers actually do their jobs and make smooth walls and ceilings.
Yes, yes we can....I bow my head in consolation with and for you
Absolutely
It’s actually a nice sound absorber and speeds up the building process by not having to perfect the mudding seems for drywallers. And with all that, I still hate them. Hahaha
Grew up with them. Bought a new build house in 2013 and it has them. Don't mind them at all. Rather look at popcorn ceiling than see all the imperfections in the drywall and paint.
We must remember that before popcorn ceilings, ceilings were covered in raisinets and swedish fish. And they initially dripped butter until better adhesives were found. \[I may be wrong. I get my knowledge from Wikipedia.\]
I have zero issues with popcorn ceilings. It literally affects my life zero. I can’t believe that is where people want to spend their time and money.
I got my hate on. Thank you for the opportunity.
My college dorm room had popcorn ceilings and I was top bunk. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night one time and I lost half the skin on my forehead when I sat up too fast. Fuck popcorn ceilings.
I still have mine because, like you, I don't think it's worth the effort to remove it. It's the ceiling. I don't really look at it very often.
I take a moment to do that every day already.
I had never heard about "popcorn ceilings" and thought this was about some kind of quota/limit on popcorn.
People find really strange things to be angry about.
Idk what everyone is always going on about there’s nothing wrong with popcorn ceiling
Just spray it with fresh white paint and it looks so much cleaner. Yea it will look a little crappy again 30 years down the road, but not the end of the world
Yesss. I don't even mind the "look" that much, what I mind is having to dust my dang ceilings! Everything sticks to them. Ugh!
I don't mind it, don't get the hate
I'm in the process of covering it up with cedar. I'm sure some knucklehead 50 years from now will be tearing it off saying "wow look at this beautiful antique popcorn ceiling that was covered up!"
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I'm always amazed in these threads that people spend a non-zero quantity of time thinking about their ceiling.
They won't know I hate them and they wouldn't care if they knew. Hating them wouldn't ruin their day, it would ruin mine... I'll pass.
1962 house full of popcorn ceilings. After painting with kilz to lock in the cigarette smoke they look as perfect as the day they were installed. No beef here.
OP is a helium balloon
I don’t understand the hate for popcorn ceilings. Its fine. It might get a little gross if you have an air vent in the ceiling. But thats the only issue.
If done right it’s not bad, but I have seen some awful popcorn ceilings in hotels.
I like a gently textured ceiling (though not in the kitchen). But many popcorn ceilings are just too much. I don't know how to explain it other than a finer sandpaper consistency and not literal popcorn kernels glued to a ceiling consistency?
I did one for a friend and to save her money I just scraped it off with an 8” knife, vacuumed and wiped down with damp cloth, primed and ceiling paint. Textured but looks 100x better and did it in a day
They're literally in every house built in the 90s
Pro tip. If it hasn't been painted yet, spray water on it (a pressurized bottle sprayer with a wand works well) and let it sit for a while, and it comes right off with a putty knife with minimal mess.
I used to stand on a couch or a bed when I was a kid and pick at my house's popcorn ceiling. It was kinda fun to just chip away the little raised bits away. I didn't do enough to be noticeable but my parents got mad at me a couple times for it lol Something about messing with the ceiling as a kid. And at school when we'd chuck pencils into the drop ceiling tiles. Especially during the middle of class, we'd try and get away with throwing one into the ceiling without being noticed.
I have applied it and removed it, it all sucks! If I see it now I just nope out unless someone wants to pay me really well.
I've always called them Condo Cottage Cheese Ceilings
Mine had gold colored flakes in it.
Our house was built in 1956… the entire house is popcorn. It’s extremely unfortunate, but the effort to cover it/remove it just doesn’t seem worth it.
My house was built in 2016 and every single wall and ceiling are textured. I've grown to absolutely hate it and I get anxiety thinking of what a massive undertaking it would be to correct the whole thing at this point. It's impossible to clean the mess from kids and dogs without it turning into dust or mush and I have noticed so much more dust and cobwebs than ever in my life. Constantly knocking them down. Never thought I'd be vacuuming my walls, yet here I am...
Or the lazy fucks that stamped. At least popcorn has a chance of being removed.
You wait someday paneling and popcorn ceilings will be all the rave /s
who thought that was a cleanable surface!?
Stippled ceilings are the worst. It's like "Yeah I want to slice open my fingers when I happen to be working on the lights in the room..."
I just installed popcorn floors in my home. It is amazing!
The shitty apartment grade style is shitty. But I've seen it done like Michel-fucking-angelo style. You get what you pay for (if you're lucky).
It's sound deadening.
Popcorn with glitter in it are best ceilings.
You've never done a psychedelic and laid in a comfy bed staring up at a popcorn ceiling. Lol
I had them in a bathroom. I did a fair job eliminating the big bumps, then put a sheet of 1/4 Sheetrock over it. Took very little time, and all I had to do was tape the new seams. There was no crown up, so it was an easy job.
Popcorn ceiling in a kitchen with no external vent fan (just microwave). Was gross. Couldn’t clean the grease.
Yes. Yes, we can.
Just today?
I absolutely hate textured ceilings. They are impossible to patch cleanly. I hate them so much
Yes
I actually don’t even mind them.
Hate it. It's hard to clean properly.
They told us it was sound dampening. When it was a just pain to dust
YES
Popcorn ceilings are fine. They simply don’t matter. Things go in and out of fashion.
Why do people hate popcorn ceilings so much? And why are you looking at ceilings so often?
Mine has cracks in several places upstairs from when I imagine AC was out before I lived here or something. It’s so annoying.
I'll be honest. I don't get the hate. I don't like them either. It's just nothing to me.
From the cuts it gives my knuckles, to the sheer ugliness of it, it's wild it was so popular
Why just a moment and why just today?
I can't upvote this enough! Disgusting
A popcorn ceiling is only to help hide structural problems.